For a guy who keeps talking about a new kind of politics, Marco Rubio is falling back on the oldest dodge in the political playbook.

Blame the media.

The public deserved better from Florida's senator at Wednesday's Republican debate.

Instead, Rubio dodged the concern — expressed by this editorial board — about his poor Senate attendance record, the worst of anybody's. Neither did he address our call for him to resign rather than continue to leave one of Florida's two Senate seats mostly vacant as he campaigns for the presidency over the next year.

Instead, he smiled and said: "I read that editorial today with great amusement. It's actually evidence of the bias that exists in the American media."

As proof, Rubio noted that the Sun Sentinel hadn't called for then-Sens. Barack Obama and John Kerry to resign when they chalked up even worse attendance records while running for president.

While surprised to hear Rubio put himself in the same league as Obama and Kerry, we'd point out that Obama and Kerry were not our senators, and we don't recall them saying they hated their jobs in the Senate.

Rubio, on the other hand, is our senator. And as such, he is accountable to Florida voters.

Still, Rubio is right. It is not OK that Obama, or Kerry or any other politician who runs for higher office stops doing the job citizens are paying them to do, in this case $174,000 per year.

But who gets to call out this bad behavior? During the debate, when former Gov. Jeb Bush similarly underscored Rubio's terrible attendance record, the senator said Bush was simply trying to score political points. As for the Sun Sentinel, he said we showed a liberal bias.

For the record, we'd note that we endorsed Rubio for the Senate in 2010, and Mitt Romney for president in 2012, because we were frustrated by the pace of hope and change in Washington, and they both promised to work hard to make a difference.

But ever since he got to Washington, it seems Rubio has been running for higher office. Almost immediately, he authored a book to introduce himself to the nation. And after demonstrating the courage to sponsor a bill that would comprehensively reform our nation's immigration law — his lone signature piece of legislation — he backed off, because of politics.

Now, Rubio says he finds the Senate frustrating, that our nation's greatest deliberative chamber moves too slowly and that he wants out. Instead, he says he wants to be president because he could make change happen faster.

But here's a question to consider: If Rubio found his Senate job so frustrating that he almost immediately backed off his promises, what's to say history won't repeat itself if he were to win the White House?

Look, we're all frustrated by the dysfunction in Washington. But on the night he won a three-way race for the Senate, Rubio promised Floridians it was "a second chance for Republicans to be what they said they were going to be."

Rubio said he was going to fight for us and heaven knows, we've got big issues that need attention. But because he is off and running for the presidency, we find it incredibly hard to get Rubio's ear. The people of Florida, who know him best, deserve better.

If Rubio wants to be president, he should go for it, give it all he's got, full steam ahead. But the demands of the presidential campaign have proven too great for him to do his day job.

Given that, Rubio should resign his Senate seat and let our governor appoint someone who has the time and desire to not only serve constituents, but to attend the committee hearings, the intelligence briefings, and yes, the floor votes on the big challenges facing our nation.